Contents

Synopsis

Flashback

In a meeting, Hurley's doctor at Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute, Dr. Brooks, checks on his eating habits. When Brooks mentions his mom, Hurley says he is not mad at her anymore for signing him in. Brooks also reveals that Hurley has been there for almost two months, and says it is time they start to "get their hands dirty". They start with discussing Hurley's homework of making a list of things he likes about himself, and end arguing about another patient, Dave, whom Brooks thinks is a bad influence on Hurley for encouraging him not to take the task. Hurley, however, rejects his opinion and declares Dave as the most normal person around. Next, at a basketball game in the hospital, Dave tries to get the ball but is continuously unsuccessful. Hurley arrives and talks about his meeting, but Dave distracts him with thoughts of food and Taco night.

Hurley then proceeds to eat his diet celery, but Dave dares him to take one of Leonard's graham crackers, which Hurley eventually does. Nurse Lazenby then gives him his medication (Clonazepam), which Dave advises him not to swallow. Dr. Brooks arrives and talks to Dave and Hurley, before taking a picture of them. After he leaves, Hurley shows Dave the pills, kept in his mouth.

In another meeting, Hurley reads his list of good points to Dr. Brooks. When Brooks mentions that he did not write about the way he looks, Hurley starts to talk about the accident. Apparently, he walked onto a deck and it collapsed soon after, with two people killed, leading Hurley to think his weight caused it. Brooks, however, says that it wasn’t his fault, since there were already 23 people on, while it was built to hold 8. He also reveals that after the accident, Hurley was in a catatonic state, in which he stopped talking, going out, and even sleeping. However, he never stopped eating, which was the way he chose to punish himself. Enraged, Hurley says that his friend, Dave, was right about Brooks being a "quack", to which Brooks shows him the picture he had taken earlier. To Hurley's surprise, Dave does not appear in the picture, since Dave, as Brooks reveals, is a figment of Hurley's imagination. ♪ Later that night, Dave wakes Hurley up to escape with him from the institute. ♪ At the last moment, Hurley confronts Dave and declares that he isn't real, and refuses to follow him. In an act of bravery, Hurley then locks Dave outside the institute, and goes back to his bed.

In the last flashback, returning to the scene where the Polaroid picture was taken, the camera pans to show an apparently sick Libby at another table, watching Hurley posing for the picture with no one next to him, before accepting her medication from a nurse. Thus, through Libby's point of view of the scene, we confirm the imaginary nature of Dave.

On the Island

The episode begins at the beach, where Hurley is trying to catch up with Libby's walking pace, who has taken upon herself the task of getting him into shape. Hurley, however, is frustrated at his failing efforts, and rejects Libby's comforting words, and then asserts that he is "sick". Libby asks him to confide in her, so Hurley comes clean and confesses his food problem. He takes Libby to the jungle, where he reveals a stash into which he has been hoarding food from the Swan. He expresses his wishes to get rid of it, but apparently he was unable to so far. Libby advises him that change comes by action, and as an encouragement she holds out to him a jar of ranch salad dressing. In a brave move, Hurley opens the jar and dumps it on the ground, then proceeds to destroy the rest of his supply while Libby laughs and encourages him. ♪ Hurley and Libby then have an intimate moment, before they are interrupted by Jin, Sun, and others running in from the beach, to look for something in the Jungle. ♪

Hurley follows them, only to be shocked by the tons of food boxes from the recent supply drop, labeled DHARMA, much larger than what he just wasted. Soon the survivors start fighting for food shares, before suggesting that Hurley should be in charge. Hurley panics at the suggestion, then he sees a man in his bathrobe walking away, whom he promptly follows. ♪ While searching, Hurley falls on what he discovers to be Dave's slipper. Libby soon catches up with him, and praises his strong head for not freaking out at the new food temptation. Hurley, on the other hand, is busy trying to hide Dave's slipper.

Meanwhile, in the hatch, Locke recovers from the incident with the blast doors, with the help of Jack and Kate. Locke comments on the controversy of "Henry" not using the chance he had during the Lockdown to escape, thinking that it was to help him. Jack, however, rejects that and says it was only because he thought his balloon story would check out.

In the armory, the situation with the prisoner heats up. Sayid and Ana recount to a bound "Henry" that they had indeed found his balloon, but when they dug up the grave site of his supposed wife, Jennifer Gale, they discovered a male body: the real Henry Gale, as identified by the contents of his wallet. Inside the wallet was a driver's license featuring the real Henry Gale, who is African-American, and a twenty dollar bill, with an inscription that indicates he did not die in his balloon crash. Thus, they reveal that in spite of the right details he mentioned, "Henry" had been lying all along.

Reluctantly, the fake Henry finally admits that he is indeed an Other, but he would be killed if he talks. He also makes a comment on "the guy with the beard," whom he says is of no important position compared to "Him." When "Henry" says he cannot tell them anything about the Others, Sayid threatens "Henry" at gunpoint. "Henry" insists he cannot talk, and Sayid loads the gun, than counts to 3. "Henry" cries that Sayid can't kill him because he is not a bad person, but Sayid pulls the trigger. Ana Lucia, however, intervenes just in time by grabbing Sayid's gun arm, causing the shot to strike the wall, thereby saving "Henry"'s life. Locke shouts "Jack", as he is not in the loop and wants to know what is going on.

At the beach, Eko is sawing wood to build a church. Charlie approaches him and asks what he is doing, but Eko enlists his help in moving the wood without revealing the reason. Back in the Jungle, Hurley stumbles on a DHARMA box of "Fish Crackers" on his search for Dave, which he is soon unable to resist opening. While eating, Dave appears to him again, and throws coconuts at him after Hurley denounces his existence. Hurley runs towards Dave, escaping, and he quickly arrives at the beach where he stops at Eko's construction. He then heads to Sawyer to ask him for Clonazepam. Sawyer asks why, and Hurley answers: because he sees "a bald guy in a bath robe". Sawyer then mocks Hurley and hints that he is going nuts, which causes Hurley's temper to heat and soon he attacks him. Other people on the beach watch, including Sun, who encourages a highly amused Jin to go help break it up, which he does. After a quick fight, Sawyer calls Hurley "crazy", which Hurley strongly denies. Enraged, Hurley gathers his stuff and decides to go live at the caves, where now no one is living anymore, refusing Libby's attempts to talk him out of it. On his way, a jar of peanut butter falls open from his bag, which he stops to eat. As he licks some off a rock using a leaf, Dave appears again.

After a long talk, Dave convinces Hurley that he is actually still in Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute, but in a coma. He tells him that everything that happened from the moment Hurley locked him out of the institute (the lottery, the crash, and Libby), were only in his head. Dave then leads him to the top of a massive cliff that falls at a steep angle down to the ocean, and tries to convince him to jump off. He then assures him that after he jumps, he will wake up back into his old life. To convince him even further, Dave jumps off first.

Back at the hatch, Locke finally confronts the prisoner, demanding to know why he let himself to be caught, thinking it might have been to locate the Swan. "Henry", however, calls the Swan a "joke". He also states that even God is unable to see the Island. When Locke asks him to elaborate, "Henry" says that after he crawled through the vents and reached the computer room, he never did push the button. He says he simply stood there, and watched the timer's numbers turn to red hieroglyphs before they reset back to 108 on their own. Locke, however, replies angrily that he is lying.

Elsewhere, the traumatized Hurley is watching as Dave falls, when all of a sudden Libby emerges from the jungle, asking him what is wrong. Hurley states to her that all that is happening is not real, and is only a comatose dream, including herself. His rationale is that in the real world, no good-looking girl like her would ever like him. Libby replies that he is regressing, and refuses his claims, noting that her dreadful experience with the tail-section survivors, most of whom he didn't meet, must be real. ♪ Hurley, however, is about to jump off of the cliff when Libby tells him that she likes him. She then moves in towards Hurley, and the two share a passionate and tender kiss, before she asks him if this was real. Finally, Hurley comes back to his senses, and the new couple heads back to camp. ♪

When Hurley is playing connect four with Leonard Simms who is saying the numbers over and over again, Leonard always says the number 8 very loud and stern. This is Hurley's candidate number.

Production notes

ABC executives rejected the original draft for this episode, arguing the idea that the story could be all in Hurley's head offered an explanation for the show as a whole.[1] It's not known what changes were made to the script to address those concerns.

This episode has no "Previously on Lost" recap at its beginning.

While filming the beginning of the episode, where Hurley falls over while chasing Dave, Jorge Garcia cut his hand by accident on a piece of glass in the jungle. In a later scene, Hurley is seen with a plaster (band-aid) on the heel of his left thumb when picking up the DHARMA Fish Crackers.

Bloopers and continuity errors

The Polaroid photo Dr. Brooks shows to Hurley looks darker than the time it was taken and missing some of the people present at the time. This may be due to many reasons, including a production error, a deliberate use of a different photo by Brooks, or due to common darkening effect of Polaroid cameras.

When Dave is being chased through the jungle by Hugo, he can clearly be seen wearing two different shoes (a slipper and an unidentifiable red shoe), even though he is shown with only one on in different scenes.

Dave is shown to be wearing red socks. The actor is likely to have worn a matching red shoe to protect his foot during the running sequence.

While Hurley is walking through the jungle, for four seconds a white blur appears on the left of Hurley's head.

This was explained on the audio commentary for this episode as a production error - the flash was an accident but they had run out of film at that point and had to use that footage.

When Hurley and Libby are getting rid of the food, the DHARMA Initiative ranch dressing disappears from Hurley's left arm.

When Hurley and Libby are talking on the beach, right before Libby says "I tried to find you", Hurley's hair is blowing in the wind but in the next shot his hair is perfectly still.

Libby cries during her kiss with Hugo, but in the shots following, the tear track that would've run down her face is not present.

During the game, Dave says, "Pretty sneaky, Leonard." This is a takeoff on a line from the Connect Four TV commercial where a boy says, "Pretty sneaky, sis" after she defeats him by lining up her checkers diagonally. (Movies and TV)

My Own Private Idaho: When explaining to Hurley that his experiences since leaving the mental hospital are not real, Dave says, "The second you closed that window, your brain popped a gasket. You went back into your little 'coma thing' and that's where you are this very second - in your own private Idaho inside Santa Rosa." This is a reference to the is a 1991 independent film written and directed by Gus Van Sant which, in turn, is loosely based on Shakespeare’s Henry IV, part 1. (Movies and TV)

Lassie: When Kate is teasing Sawyer about getting beat up by Hurley, he replies by asking her if she doesn't have an adventure to get to and that he thinks "Timmy fell in a well over that way." Timmy was a main character in this TV show (1954-1974). (Movies and TV)